


Reports of Fraudulent Emotion

by Effluvium



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Hurt Peter, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2019-01-15 10:01:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12318768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Effluvium/pseuds/Effluvium
Summary: Pepper would always tell him it was in the tone that the reporters truly craved, because they can only twist words so much, only collapse the short syllables and blunt answers to a certain point becausethere always has to be something more, something to latch onto; it’s what makes us human, the sound behind the voice, the way it resonates with and through us.





	1. Tragedy - Strategize

**Author's Note:**

> I did take down Writ of [horrible] Habit. I need to think that one through a bit more before I continue writing it.

Tony didn’t think he’d ever reach a point in his life like this one. Didn’t think he’d ever have a reason to mourn so deeply over something so small, didn’t think he’d have a reason to be interviewed over something - someone - less than half his age. Didn’t have the mindset to believe that he would feel the parental pain of losing someone so small, so young, in his care.

“Were you close to him?”

“Yes.” He knew how to be quick, sharp - how to strike with his words an emotion like that of a knife after hours of shining. “I was very close to him.”

Pepper would always tell him it was in the tone that the reporters truly craved, because they can only twist words so much, only collapse the short syllables and blunt answers to a certain point because _there always has to be something more, something to latch onto; it’s what makes us human, the sound behind the voice, the way it resonates with and through us._

Tony never thought that her words would come in such a critical time. It hadn’t seemed like they would when she said those words; it’d just sounded like Pepper Potts, the woman he loved.

“Were you aware of the situation, at all?”

_Be careful with your voice; it can throw your thoughts off the loop._

“I saw over the news,” he said slowly, drawing the syllables out, letting them eat his vibrations. “I immediately called his family, made sure they knew. Then I went to find him.” 

Eleven-twelve-ay-em (Peter liked sounding things out, English had always been an enemy to his nervousness). Monday; cold, dreary, snowy, mid-December, almost Christmas time, almost Christmas Eve, almost turn the porch lights on in the morning, inflate that big-ass snowman on the roof, almost turn the red and white and yellow and blue and green lights on. Almost don’t-go-driving-on-that-side-road, almost put the star on the evergreen tree in the living room.

_“I got you a gift - for Christmas - Mr. Stark.”_

_“Well that’s nice. What is it?”_

_“Can’t tell you that. Just thought I’d let you know; you always get those weird, deer-in-the-headlights looks when I bring Thai over to the compound.”_

“What did you see in 105?” The woman had blue eyes, ones that seemed to pound nails into his brown ones. “Most of the police officers had refused to enter the room.”

Tony knew that. He’d sprinted past at least twenty of them, the many orange blankets overflowing his vision as he did.

“It was a very loud room, Miss.” Tony whispered roughly, swallowing roughly, blinking roughly. “But it was quiet, too. Very, very quiet.”

“Well, what do you mean by that?”

_Reporters don’t care, don’t show that emotion; they try to keep themselves out of the equation so as to only put the storm on you._

“What I mean by that,” he snarled, passively, “is that every phone was ringing and every voicemail being left became more and more frantic. Every call was being missed; no phone was answered.”

Tony didn’t include how horrible the room smelled, how many of the students hadn’t been in their seats. He didn’t mention that it was a science classroom, that they’d been doing an experiment on the way certain chemical-fluids reacted to each other. He didn’t mention that every single test-tube had fallen over onto the floor, making black stains that would last for centuries.

The blue-eyed reporter shook her head, fraudulent. “That’s horrible. How did you find the girl?”

And there it was, the punchline.

_They’re always going to lead you into a trap, into a situation even a superhero wouldn’t want to answer to. Don’t let them catch you cross-eyed._

“A classmate had thrown her into a cupboard.” His brown eyes gleamed, brows low, thoughts high. “Mr. James Kinley didn’t go looking for her, thankfully.”

If he had, Tony didn’t know where he’d be right now.

“Was she hurt at all?”

“Took a shot to the arm, around her wrist. As far as I know, she’s healing fine.”

“What does she have to say to any of this?”

_Don’t let them cross your eyes, either._

“She is remaining silent on the situation, and you won’t be going to find her.” The billionaire narrowed his eyes, fingers tapping together on his lap. “She hasn’t graduated high school yet. You and your cameras are going to leave her be as long as she wishes.”

_State your stance._ Peter had thrown her into the cupboard; that was something he’d left out, too. She’d been battered up and bleeding, dark face unusually pale, small curls plastered to her neck in a cold sweat. He hadn’t let her look at the ground in front of her, at the body that lay on it; he instead took her into his arms, carrying her past the red room, rubbing her hair and wrapping her wrist in his jacket.

_“Your hands are so bloody.”_

_“I know, I’m sorry.”_

_“He said to shut up, or he’d shut me up.”_

_“It was for your own safety.”_

_“He never tells me to shut up. It’s usually the other way around.”_

“What will happen to 105? Do they have any plans for it?”

_They’re good at making paths of their own, but they’re made out of dirt. Stomp on them and pave with stone._ “Room 105 will be off-limits for a while, but will eventually become a classroom once again, for future students. A tragedy like this shouldn’t prevent children from learning.”

“Were there any other survivors?”

_Stomp on them and pave. With. Stone. Throw them so far off the road they break their necks trying to see it again._

“Yes. And you don’t get to talk to any of them.”


	2. Call One-Oh-Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michelle couldn't stop thinking, and it was starting to affect the white walls around her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the wait, I've been insanely busy recently.

“This isn’t new.”

The room was white, as were the beds and floors and chairs and ceiling tiles. The flowers were bright, painfully so, their sunset colors seeming so out of place in the bland room. Her cards were stacked against the makeshift bookcase the hospital had just barely managed to fill.

There was a window, too, in her room; it embedded the wall to her left, fogged up with cold air, showcasing the snowfall that had managed to touch the ground outside. That’s how she knew, really, what happened out there. That’s how she knew it wasn’t _quite_ snowing anymore, more like raining with a depressing purpose, more like sprinkling just enough for it to be pouring.

She wasn’t sure when she started to pay attention to the small details. Peter always had, willingly or not, and that now made her realize why he was so damn smart; he couldn’t forget anything, even if he wanted to - and for that, she pitied him.

Her arm was wrapped, wrist bound in tight bandaging and an uncomfortable cast. Her cuts had turned to scabs, then to bruises, then to ghost pains that prevented her from sleeping most of the nights she was there. It was hard, for once; she was always so used to knowing everything, knowing when things would happen, what the answer to every problem was. And that was gone, now. Buried somewhere inside the walls of two-ten and beneath the graves of one-oh-five.

“What do you mean?”

“This,” Michelle waved around the room, looking to the wealthy man in front of her. “People dying. Schools being shot up. Family disappearing; it’s all happened before.”

“That doesn’t make this time any less important.”

“But it shouldn’t hurt as much as it does, Tony.” She looked him in his dark eyes, quivering in her bed. “I’ve been stuck in this hospital for nearly three weeks, and for what? So that I don’t have to go back?”

He didn’t know what to say, looking away from the teen and glancing the window. “We’re just trying to give you time to heal.”

“This is the wrong place for anyone to heal.” Michelle’s lips thinned, eyes dark and hard-set. “There’s no fancy way of putting it: A man came into Midtown and shot up my chemistry classroom. He killed everyone he could see and left without a care in the world for what he’d just done.”

Tony grimaced, not used to the bluntness of her voice. “MJ, what do you want us to do?”

“I want you,” she fixed her eyes on his, “to help me forget. I realized the other day why Peter was so smart, why everything got to him, why he was so bad at lying, so bad at hiding secrets; help me forget all that, Tony. I can’t think about it all anymore.”

It was then that he realized that this was more than Peter Parker. This was the effect of tragedy in her brain; it made her shut down, become desperate. It forced her to dig further for answers than she ever had before, and her hands were too broken to go forward any longer.

105 was more of a moral issue. Tony himself had realized the problem behind surviving that sort of event alone. It posed a thought that no-one sane would ever want to think about. How do you trust those around you? How do you process the pure emotionlessness of a murder? How does someone so sound-of-mind commit a crime like that of 105?

“I won’t wipe your memory.” He said that because he could, because that was an option he could give.

“I wouldn’t want that, not for the world.” She sighed. “I sit in this room all day and think and think and think. I think about everything that could have gone differently, think about things I should have said to him, think about what I could have done to change what happened in 105.”

The billionaire glanced at her pale face. “You can’t think like that, not after something like this. It’ll just pull you down into those places you crawl out of every day.”

“Then tell me, Tony,” Michelle solely tilted her head, brows furrowed in pain. “Tell me how I tell my mind to stop thinking.”

The beeping on her machine seemed a lot louder all of a sudden. The light from her window shone brighter, the flowers were even more vibrant. It was like everything had been dialed to eleven; the feeling was mutually familiar. “I can set up a psychiatrist, one of my own. Not those shitty ones they have here.”

“What will I say to them that I haven’t already said to you?”

“You’ve got hours a day to sit and think in here. You’ve gotta have some heartache somewhere up there.”

Michelle shook her head. “Some of it is best left up there, I think.”

Tony didn’t know where to go off of that. He’d never dealt with children very well, in his opinion; they were always so dramatic, so out-of-the-blue, so needy. He was used to that, despised it, avoided it with all he had in him. Michelle Jones, however, broke the strings left by Peter’s pure and utter bombardment of joy. 

“Have you seen Ned?”

“No, I haven’t. He hasn’t come by.”

“You haven’t called?”

She paused. “No.” Then she looked to him, brows furrowed, expression wary. “Is he alright?”

“He went to Peter’s funeral,” and you didn’t Tony whispered, not knowing why this stuck with him as much as it did. “He gave a eulogy, which was the last thing I thought he’d do.”

“What’d he say?”

“A lot of things. A lot of apologies; you two are amazing at guilt-tripping yourselves over nothing.” The billionaire rose a brow, glancing at her, then sighed, letting all the pressure he’d built up inside release in a single breath. “He talked about all the times he and Peter would be on call together, when he was out patrolling.”

The room chilled, eliciting a shiver from their beings.

“So, what, everyone knows about Peter’s alter ego now?”

“Everyone knew before that,” he gave her a stare. “The police took his body, along with the others, before I could get back to it. They tested his blood, connected the dots. The entire state of New York knows who he is, and soon the rest of the world will, too.”

Michelle set her jaw, looking angry, put off. “That’s stupid.”

“Stupid?”

“People are mourning him - people that don’t care.”

“I don’t think that’s necessarily true; plenty of people are mourning over Midtown’s losses.”

Michelle shook her head, looking to the window. “They’re mourning Spider-Man, Tony. Not Peter, not anyone else that was in that room, just that ridiculous red and blue spandex he wore.”

It shook him in a way, when she said that. It was a small detail he’d managed to overlook, to forget, ignore. It was strange how the human mind worked, how it could throw something so much more important than the picture into the trash can; it threw his mind a few yards behind reality, and they were rapidly catching up to him.

“Did you hear the calls?”

He looked up from his clenched hands, too quickly to even think about lying. “I… yes. I heard them.”

“Did you hear May?”

He hadn’t. He’s glad he didn’t. “No, I got there later.”

_“Peter honey, please pick up. You’ve gotta do it, you can’t have me worrying like this, okay? You wouldn’t do that to me. You’re too kind.”_

“She sounded so confident,” Michelle rasped, suddenly overtaken by emotion. “Her voice was so loud compared to the others, y’know? Maybe it’s because he was the one who pushed me into the cupboard, and was dying right in front of it.”

_“Peter, dear, please pick up. Ned says you aren’t answering your texts, and MJ hasn’t been seen. She’s in your class, isn’t she?”_

“Or maybe it’s because you knew her.” 

_“The cops won’t let me through, Peter. Please answer your phone, please. Did it break? You break your phones a lot. Peter, please pick up.”_

“It was scary, sitting in there.” She blinked, frowning. “He didn’t make a noise, Tony. He just fell and stopped breathing.”

_“They keep saying 105 is locked up. Isn’t that your chemistry class? What day do you have it again? Ned would know. Hey, Ned, honey -”_

Tony shivered. “He does that, a lot. Hides his pain, like people would think any less of him if he didn’t.”

_“Peter, where’s MJ? Didn’t she have class with you? Ned said you were in chemistry, but he can’t remember what room it is. Where’s MJ? Peter, please pick up. Ned’s so worried.” and I am, too. I’m terrified, so terrified I can’t breathe._

“Ned switched classes in November, which took him out of chemistry with Peter and I.” Michelle laughed, wheezing slightly. “We were so upset when he got his new schedule. Isn’t that funny?”

_“Peter, why is 105 locked up? Ned says he got a glance at it before he was rushed out, said it was horrifying. You aren’t in there, though, right? Right, Peter?”_

“I thought he was joking when he pushed me in that cabinet,” her brown eyes were lidded, tired, anesthetic finally shutting her down. “I told him to lighten up. He said shut up, MJ, or I’ll web your mouth shut.”

_“Peter, please, I can’t take this. You know I hate surprises - fuck, I hate suspense so, so much more. You’re going to be in so much trouble tonight, mister.”_

“He never tells me to shut up.”

_“You have to be in trouble tonight, Peter.”_

“I’m sorry.” He didn’t know what else to say.

She sighed, struggling to stay awake. “Don’t apologize. And, Tony?”

“Yes?”

“Only my friends call me MJ. You’re not one of them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My writing process typically goes through a rough-draft on my phone's 'Notes' app, a pre-write in Google Docs, and then format-fitting and italicizing in AOUO, which is tedious, but satisfying.


End file.
